IPCC

How it is used

Read letter by letter. Set up in 1988, the IPCC does not carry out its own research: scientists review published studies and write assessment reports, such as the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). The short Summary for Policymakers (SPM) is the most widely quoted part.

Example sentences

1. According to the IPCC, global emissions need to fall steeply this decade to keep 1.5°C within reach.

2. We used the IPCC scenarios in our climate risk analysis.

Common collocations

• IPCC report
• IPCC scenarios
• Summary for Policymakers
• assessment report

Related terms

• climate changeLong-term change in the Earth's typical temperatures and weather patterns. Today the term mostly refers to the warming caused by human activities such as burning coal, oil and gas.
• global warmingThe rise in the Earth's average surface temperature since the late 1800s, caused mainly by greenhouse gases released by human activities.
• COPShort for Conference of the Parties: the yearly UN climate summit where the countries that signed the UN climate convention negotiate and review global climate action.
• pre-industrial levelsThe conditions before large-scale industry began, usually the period 1850–1900, used as the reference point for measuring global warming and CO2 concentrations.
• tipping pointA critical threshold in the climate system beyond which a change, such as ice sheet collapse or forest dieback, becomes self-reinforcing and very hard or impossible to reverse.

More terms: Climate Change and Climate Science

• greenhouse effect
• extreme weather
• sea level rise
• drought
• heatwave
• ocean acidification